To illustrate how much sample size influences the numbers, one can’t really argue that the Knicks free throw defense got any worse though the league shot 1.6% better over the post trade sample. TOV numbers did look much better post trade.

Brian Cronin:
I still can’t believe Sterling actually started heckling his own player. That truly was nuts.

Are Sterling and Wilpon somehow related? Sorry..couldn’t resist. Sad thing is..I’m a Mets fan..

Yeah, you have to figure Randolph is a top guy to be moved on that team if Nelson took over (Beasley is also likely gone no matter what), but I think they’d be able to get more from another team than anything the Knicks could offer.

http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/214756/Minnesota_Talking_To_Don_Nelson_About_Head_Coaching_Vacancy

Isnt West a free agent but had major knee surgery late in the season? Maybe he will be forced to re-sign for 1 year and prove he is healthy and be a free agent again in 2012?

It definitely is a possibility, but if he wanted to do that he could have just accepted the one-year option New Orleans held. By turning that option down, it seems like he thinks that the dearth of good forwards on the free agency market will make him look attractive enough that some other team will still pay him (someone like New Jersey, for instance).

I think they will play in Los Angeles …. Clippers, if Sterling doesnt mess it too much. What happens if the Clippers offer NOLA Mo Williams, Al-farouq Aminu, Minnesotta’s 1st round pick and their own pick? It will very hard for NO to find a better offer; and CP3 might agree to an extension since they would have cap space for Howard.

CP3/Gordon/?/Griffin/Howard? Take that Miami!

With those other four players, they literally could just send out an actual question mark at small forward and still win 60 games. “What’s that question mark doing out there? It’s just standing around!”

Brian Cronin: That is significant.

Again… you do nothing to prove it’s significant except say it is. A marginal change in TS% over a small sample of games would seem to be to have a good chance of being due to random chance, and thus not significant. If a career 57% TS% guy has a 55% half season… people aren’t really going to bat an eye. On the Knicks Amare was a 57% TS% guy up to that point. I’d like to see you do something to show it’s significant rather than relying on the “because I say so” line of reasoning.

You haven’t done anything to show the components of TS%. If his 2P% went down or especially if his close shots went down as a % of FGAs… that would help your case a lot. If his drop in TS% was due to FT% and/or shooting worse on jumpers… not so much.

I am not a big Melo fan, nor was I a big fan of the trade. At the same time I am not a big fan of your argument about teammates being 100% responsible for players’ performance without much more than anecdotal evidence to back it up. I absolutely think the Knicks could play better on both sides of the ball and hope they’ll do it this season (if there’s a season). I just don’t like you presenting as fact that teammates are the reason for a rookie 2nd rounder to struggle or a star to suffer a marginal decline in scoring efficiency or that two guys are bad defenders because you say so.

Brian Cronin: particularly since both Billups and Melo are weak defensive players, so by playing them the Knicks are even worse on defense than they normally are.

You keep asserting this as fact and not doing anything to back it up.

Generally your argument is not well supported by stats. Small samples in some cases and just a complete absence of stats in others. You can introduce it as a hypothesis, but why myself and others are having problems with it is that you’re introducing it as irrefutable fact.

Brian Cronin: I’m not blaming Melo/Billups for Extra E.

Just Fields and Amar’e

Fields was a rookie who was playing way, way better than anyone expected and then hit a wall… that could have had to do with the trade, but it could have nothing at all to do with it.

Likewise a 2 point drop in TS% could have as much to do with some blown layups and a worse FT%, for example, as anything. He could have had a nagging injury. Anything.

Brian Cronin: TD and Extra E clearly had medical problems that if not the reason, sure is a big enough of a deal to consider it likely that their medical problems (or lack thereof, for TD, for a time) affected their shooting.

Unless you’re the team doctor I don’t know what value your medical opinion has.

Brian Cronin: Heck, Melo and Billups might very well be the reason Shelden improved. Or Mason. What the heck, I’ll give you both of them.

You’re missing the point 100%. SSS changes can’t be credited/blamed 100% on teammates. That’s the point.